The Element of Surprise
by CyrusLestrange
Summary: Nobody is more surprised when Lily Evans starts to have physical reactions to James Potter that are ENTIRELY beyond her control- than Lily Evans is. His secret weapon? Indifference. (Seventh-Year-Dabble-Drabbles).
1. 1

**The Element of Surprise**

**1.**

James Potter is walking with that languid, panther-gait of his, down the corridor towards me, and something very strange is happening inside my chest.

My first thought is, _how young is the youngest-ever victim of a heart-attack? I know Dad is _forever_ moaning on about his cholesterol, and I'm always rolling my eyes, but by God! Karma has struck me down at last. Damn all that Shephards Pie, that onion gravy, that clotted cream! The Hogwarts House Elves have done it- they've killed me with nourishment at last…_

My second thought is, _No, you fool! You've been struck by an adrenaline spell! Quick, unsheathe your wand, be at the ready, there is dueling in the corridors!_

Because those are the only two fathomable reasons for the sudden pounding of my heart, the sharp flurries of nervousness that are cascading down my gut.

But the corridor is empty, and I haven't yet collapsed, so I'm left with a brain-numbing array of sudden thoughts and a tingling panic at the edges of my consciousness.

_Make a run for it_, is the _only_ sane thought amidst all the rubbish, so I listen, turning instantly and legging it down the opposite end of the corridor.

_"Evans!" _

I hear it echoing through my mind, in a hundred different tones, a hundred different timbres of excitement, but it's only an echo. The corridor behind me is silent, save for the soft, indifferent padding of his footsteps.

I make it around the bend, and into the nearest empty classroom, and the silence on my heels is deafening. There is another completely foreign sensation beginning to flow through my chest, and I think I dimly, ever-so-distantly, recognize it as bitter disappointment. I realize my hand is on the desk in front of me, as if I need to be steadied, and I'm breathing deeply, trying to calm the unknown panic in the fringes of my mind.

_Lily, what is happening to you_?

A small, disbelieving voice cuts through the whining haze, and I come-to a little.

_What _is _happening to me?_

I pull myself nimbly up onto the desk I have been gripping for the past minute, and stare at the chalkboard blankly. '_I will not use my wand for 'disgraceful rubbish', I will use it to honor my school. I will not use my wand for 'disgraceful rubbish', I will use it to honor my school…"_

My heart lightens the slightest bit, and a welcome smile pulls at my lips. The detention line has been written at least two-hundred times. I wonder if James Potter wrote it-

_Lily Evans. What is happening to you_.

I feel my lips tighten into a McGonagle-esque line, and I try to tear my eyes- as well as my thoughts- away from the board, but the quotations around 'disgraceful rubbish' just look _so_ inexplicably…. _sarcastic_, and all I can think of is that this has to be James' detention for turning Avery's bats into a small flock of swans last night, and all on its own, my mind conjures the image of James Potter's hands, calloused and graceful, jotting that line on the board a hundred times over, taking extra care to make those quotations look _sarcastic_-

-and that sensation starts in my chest again. As if my heart is beating in water; rippling and buoyed in some unknown currant.

And all I can do is bring my hands to my face and rub _vigorously _because- _what?!_- what am I thinking, _what_ am I doing, I am _not_ this sort of girl.

I am not someone who suddenly makes a _complete_ one-eighty and _fancies_ someone just because they are suddenly indifferent. I will _not_ be fawning over James Potter simply because he seems to have finally called it quits over the summer, and realized that his ridiculous,_ incessant_ attempts to win me over are futile.

I am someone with dignity. At least I _thought_ I was- and I will not let my ego be bruised and run rampant on me, simply because I have lost the constant flattery of his affections. _Flattery_ is not even the right word. _Irritation_, or _abomination_ would actually be more accurate, but my poor, broken brain seems to be having trouble remembering the menace that has been James Potter for the past six years.

_I am being quite as bad as him, at the moment_, I realize with a nasty shock. All these years I have accused _him_ of being self-centered, and look at me now! All hot and bothered because my faithful lap-dog is gone.

_Nonsense_. It is _nonsense_, I decide, with a firm nod of my head to the empty room. I will be _happy _for him. Maybe now, at long last, he can stop messing about with half the girls in the school, and pick one of _them_ to actually like.

I nod firmly again, but that second sensation is burning through my gut, that bitter resentment, and I am not as blind to it as I pretend to be.

I stare at the quotations on the board for a long while, wrestling with my own mind, sorting out a course of sensible action.

By the time I gather my wits and my nerves enough to leave the classroom, I realize the period is over and I, Lily Evans, have skived-off my first class ever.

* * *

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	2. 2

**2.**

Marlene is chattering away about something either vulgar or seductive (I don't honestly think she can tell the difference) that Sirius Black said to her before Charms today, and I'm finding myself keeping my head down diligently, as if I simply _cannot_ bear to be torn away from this _fascinating _potions essay I'm scribbling away at.

It is, in fact, one of the most boring things I have ever written.

But Marlene is talking in a rush that I'm pretty sure has been caused by the mug of milky tea in her hands, and I can sense with a feeling of vague panic that her speech is swinging closer and closer to the subjects of James Potter and 'where were _you_ in Charms today, Lily?', like a searchlight closing in on a criminal hiding quivering in the shrubs just beyond the road.

My brain is filled with this new little voice, asking, _what are you doing? Why are you panicking, just because Marlene might mention James Potter's name? What's it to you?_ And my hand is slowing over the paper, because I can't think so many thoughts and write at the same time, because I just accidentally wrote _the flowers of the Jame-_ instead of _the flowers of the Jasmine_….

"Lily, did you _skip_ Charms today?" Sure enough, it comes up as I knew it would, and I look up innocently, to find Marlene smirking at me with delight.

I shrug. _Yeah_… _I ditch class all the time. No big deal. Totally cool. _"Oh… yeah. I'm just, erm- not used to being back from the summer holidays yet… trapped in the castle. Just thought I'd take a stroll through the grounds."

_Yes, because that's what you're best known for, Lily. Your love of '_strolling_ round the grounds' _outside_._

I tucked my hair behind my ears with both hands as I spoke, and I think it was a giveaway, because Marlene's smirk grows and Alice and Emmeline look over at me as well.

"You were taking a stroll," she says flatly, in a voice that clearly says, 'who are you kidding', and narrows her long-lashed eyes at me, "_you were with a boy!_"

The other girls' eyes light up, and my face betrays me and turns instantly hot, because no, I was not with a boy, I was alone in a classroom staring blankly at detention lines for an hour.

_Then why does it feel like she very nearly just struck a nerve there?_

I push that pesky, stupid little voice out of my mind, not wanting to give any more attention to these bizarre _feelings of a stranger_ that have somehow cropped up inside my own chest over the past few days. I make a mental note to look up emotional-switching spells. _Is there such a thing? Is this his most elaborate scheme yet?_

"I was not with a boy Marlene," I say in a dull sing-song, casting my eyes back onto my essay, and scribbling out the _Jame _that I have accidentally written. "I was having a moment alone."

She makes a noise of doubt, and eventually picks up her caffeine-induced chatter again. I chance a glance up, and find Alice still watching me curiously. I look away _immediately_, pretending that I heard an alarming noise behind me, because Alice knows me better than anyone, and I know she will be able to sense the fishiness in the air around me if I meet her eyes.

'Lily?' her eyes say, when I eventually look back. I grimace and shake my head. Her angelic blue gaze sweep softly over mine, and I think she _somehow_, unfathomably, _knows_ what has been bothering me, because her smile is all too understanding.

Because she was there earlier this week, on our first day as Seventh Years, when James Potter brushed past me and the rest of the Seventh Year Gryffindor girls, with nothing more than a cursory glance, and a smiled 'Ladies'.

She watched me frown after him in confusion, and quickly try and cover up the fact that I had even _noticed_ his unusually casual treatment of me.

She was there at the feast, when he and I stood to acknowledge our new positions as Head Boy and Girl, and she saw him turn to me as if just realizing his manners amongst the applause, and say a very polite, 'Hey, congratulations, Evans.'

And she was there a few minutes later, when Marlene realized how strange he was acting and exclaimed it to me with gossipy excitement. And I think she saw me blanch, shocked and puzzled at my own reaction, as I tried to fake that same gossipy interest in this silly new development in James Potter's ridiculous evolution.

And Alice was there, for the past few days, as James and I had a few more interactions, each as meaningless as the last. And she saw me realize that this was _not_ James _feigning_ indifference, as another ploy to win over my affections at last- this was a James who had somehow, over the summer, _actually_ let me, Lily Evans, go.

This was a James Potter who was now completely polite, kind, and _genuinely _indifferent.

And I think she saw this strange hollowness fall over me, as I realized that the thing that I had hoped for for _years_ had come to fruition.

And I think she saw, as she had always predicted she would, that I finally realized my mistake.

A small hand covers my wrist, the nails painted a chipping lilac color, a small silver band on her index finger. The touch makes me want to cry, and I look back up at her in utter confusion and disappointment and horror at myself.

And I can tell she sees it all.


	3. 3

**3.**

It's a Friday, and that fact alone is making me feel the same happiness that springtime often brings to bloom inside my chest.

I'm descending the spiral staircase from the Muggle Studies classroom at the leisurely pace I seem to be floating around everywhere lately, dragging a finger across the sill of the curved window that wraps around the stairs. The grounds outside are bathed in golden light, and I can see Hagrid near his hut, roughhousing with his _massive_ Tibbetan Mastiff, Leo. I smile as the dog springs to its feet and lunges at Hagrid like a great shaggy lion. My smile widens as I remember the incident at the end of last year, when James Potter and Sirius Black capitalized on Leo's likeness to a wildcat, and briefly kidnapped him to act as the Gryffindor mascot on the afternoon of the Quiddich Final.

The contentment glowing in my chest swells as I realize I only feel a nostalgic sweetness at the memory. No heart-palpitations, no oncoming panic attacks. I am back. Lily Evans is a sane girl once more.

Well. You know what I mean.

This bizarre roller-coaster of a week is drawing to a close, and I really can't help but feel foolish in its hindsight. I spent the evening alone in the dorm last night, after deciding enough was _enough_, and forced myself to buckle down to sort out my feelings. And I can see what happened now; laid out behind me like the still frames of a comic book. And while _yes_... I feel silly, I also feel incredibly _relieved_.

James Potter for whatever reason (mostly his own amusement, I think) set his bull-headed sights on me pretty much the moment he hit puberty. Before that, even, though I can't quite remember the exact moment when I started to realize that his attentions were a little more pointed than the teasings of children. And so it has been for years and years. True, the great majority of his efforts have been highly theatrical attempts to ask me out, or else incessant teasing about my lack of dating thus far, but it has been attention all the same… and I suppose _some_ part of me- a part I always tried to pretend didn't exist- enjoyed it.

And now those attentions are gone. Where I used to get a daily lift, a laugh, a chance to tell him off, I am now met with nothing; thin air. Potter and I have had _huge_ fights before (and I mean _huge_. Shouting matches in the common room- objects bursting into flame around us- McGonagle storming down in her bathrobe. Huge.). Times where we haven't spoken to each other for weeks on end. But the anger in the air between us was still _something_. There was still a constant, if silent and resentful, back and forth. A backwards confirmation that we meant enough to each other to at least constitute mutual loathing.

And if I'm being completely honest with myself, this polite emptiness, the total erasion of the six years we have known each other, feels like an unexpected and unbearable rejection.

And that is _so unfair_. _So_ unfair. Because how many times have I rejected him? With my nasty wit and fiery temper, without thinking about his feelings before I opened my mouth? Hundreds. At _least_. And the first time I get a taste of my own medicine, my whole world is rocked.

No way. I will not be that person. I will not be the brat who snaps and blunders around acting impulsively- then crumples like a victim the moment someone mirrors her actions against her.

So Potter has _finally _taken the hint that I have literally _screamed _in his face more than once? So he's become a mature human being (against _all_ odds) and has finally decided to stop barking up the willow who has whomped him at his every attempt? _Good for him_.

Yes, I became uncontrollably vulnerable at the feeling of rejection. He suddenly seemed more desirable- a respect ignited by that ranking order of dogs; the rule of 'if he disgraces you, he is the leader'. I know there is something in the most basic part of being human that makes someone who ignores you attractive. And I won't bite.

I will stick to the track I have seen without fail for six years- I will live my life, _without James Potter's intrusion_, and be the happy, _completely opposite_ personality of him that I am.

And I will let go of this ridiculous feeling of being snubbed, and be pleased that he has _finally _decided to cooperate with me!

I feel proud of myself for working this out in such a calm and timely manner, and the light pouring in through the crystal windows looks just a little bit brighter for it.

I finally manage to tear myself away from the window to continue on my way to dinner, my mind suddenly occupied with how Alice and I will spend our weekend. I am looking _so _ forward to a sleep-in tomorrow, followed of course, by a long morning of lazing about in our dorm with the rest of the girls, talking and laughing and experimenting with beauty charms.

Midway down the stairs, I can see two sources of commotion moving towards each other from opposite sides of the corridor below, like two blips on a muggle tracking device, blinking towards each other on a collision course. On the end closest to me, I hear raised voices. Two boys are jeering and laughing, their insults and laughter shouted in equal barks. A small, feminine voice is protesting quietly, in the ragged tone that comes just before tears. On the other end of the corridor comes another blend of male and female voices. However in this case, the girl is speaking in the soft lilt of flirtation, punctuated by a tinkling laugh. The male voice is bantering with her in a hyper, cocky tone that I know all too well.

The foul play moving directly below me _should_ have roused the Head Girl in me. I know it should have. I haven't been exactly living up to my duties so far. But seeing as the Head _Boy_ was already down there, and seeing as the mouth of the stairs would have deposited me _directly_ in between the two groups if I were to rush down to the rescue... something in me freezes.

Predictably, so predictably, Potter- ever heroic and noble- stills like a wolf when he notices the raised voices. That frighteningly _hungry_ look, the one that I began to notice on him at the end of last year, slides into place as his eyes narrow in disgust, fixed on whoever is at the end of the corridor. I hear him mutter a 'hold on' to the girl beside him, who I recognize as Penny Wood, and he saunters down the remaining length of the corridor, drawing his wand as he does.

"Mulciber, what the _fuck_," he says in a loud, clear voice, "are you doing?"

The other party has come into my field of vision now. It's Mulciber and a younger Slytherin boy, on the heels of a young girl, like feral dogs snapping at her ankles. She's clutching her books tightly to her chest, looking disturbed and scared, and I can hear her sniffling as quietly as she can into the sleeve of her robe. She looks up quickly at the sound of James' voice, her eyes darting between him and the Slytherins.

"Oh, we're just having a little fun," comes the unnervingly charming voice of Mulciber. He nudges the girl in a forced playful way that makes her close her eyes in fright, cringing away from his touch.

"Yeah?" James asks domineeringly, his voice full of a barely contained fight. He bends down to look the girl in the eye, and says in a much, much softer voice, "Are _you_ having _fun_?"

She gives a frightened little sob in protest, and even from where I'm standing I can see his eyes widen, his hand shoot out to rest bracingly on her back. He murmurs something in a low, sweet voice that I have _never_ heard the likes of before, and his hand on her back comes up to smooth her hair. She's tiny- only a first or second year, and I can see that her little face is torn between relief and humiliation as fresh tears begin to pour silently down her cheeks. James draws himself up, standing taller than I remember, and looks Mulciber coldly in the eye.

"Fuck off, Mulciber. Chase after a girl your own age, if you must. Personally I think you'd be much better suited to a flesh-eating-slug than a _human_ girl, but... I suppose that's beyond my reach as Head Boy."

There's a terrible moment where I'm sure, from everything I've known about James for six years, that he's going to lose control and hex Mulciber right then and there, to punctuate his disgust. I can imagine the duel that will ensue, and I realize with a heavy internal groan that it would, of course, be up to me to break up.

"Please," Mulciber sneers a horrible sneer, and there is ice in his voice, "as if I would _ever_ mess about with a Mudblood. I've got plans for girls who aren't tainted with that sort of filth. Can't be getting myself all dirty first, now can I?"

This results in a moment where I'm quite sure, that _I_ am about to lose control and hex Mulciber right then and there. The little girl is looking violated, and there is a nasty fire flowing through my blood at the sight of her face, and the sound of that muddy word. But James beats me to it.

"Go to the Headmaster's office," he says calmly, and for a moment I am stunned and a little _angry_ that he isn't flying off the handle. "Right now. I'm sending word ahead of you, so don't you dare try and downplay your level of perversion, you _sick_, prejudiced sack of scum."

It is only as he finishes his sentence that I hear that the note of calm in his tone is forced- I hear the shaking in his voice beneath it, I see his fist clenched so tightly around his wand that his knuckles are white and red.

Mulciber snorts, "I don't have to do anything you _tell _me to, Potter. Get out of my way."

It happens so fast that I swear I don't even see James move at all. He twitches, his eyes flashing, and Mulciber is doubled over, yowling, his hands cupping himself between his legs. James locks his gaze on the younger Slytherin, and his eyes speak as clearly as a voice. 'Run'. The boy turns and speeds down the corridor and out of sight.

"There, Mulciber," James says in that same eerie calm, though he's breathing fast, "how's that for dirty? Do be careful with the boils- they pop at the touch of the breeze. Now _g__o_ to the Headmaster's office. I'm sending word to Madame Pomfrey that she's not to treat you until you've spoken to the Dumbledore about your views on Muggleborns."

Mulciber shouts a string of obscenities, but staggers away all the same. James watches him until he's gone, his hand flexing on his wand as if he's coming out of a reverie. Penny Wood, who I had completely forgotten was there, approaches cautiously, and he tells her he'll see her later. She reluctantly disappears down the same end of the hallway as Mulciber- and it's just James, the young girl… and me. Watching like a frozen statue halfway down the staircase.

"Are you alright?" he asks, his voice making that impossible switch again. To tender concern. The girl tries to nod bravely, but her face crumples, and he smiles a sweetly heartsore smile at the sight. His hand cups her face gently, his palm practically the size of her head, and he tilts her chin up so she'll stop trying to hide her eyes.

"Don't ever listen to rubbish like that," he says softly. "I'm serious!" He drops his tone conspiratorially,_ that twinkle_ alight in his eyes. "Those gits are absolutely delusional, and they're just frightened because they've only ever known one world. You've known two."

The girl frowns at him dubiously and he nods enthusiastically.

"It's true," he says, "I always used to feel jealous of muggle-born students. They got to come _here_ from a whole _different_ world that I've never known anything about, really. It's the same for all of them. Voldemort, Mulciber- the whole idiotic lot. Just don't listen to it."

The girl starts a little as he says Voldemort's name, and then laughs nervously, looking around as though expecting someone to burst through the roof and smite him. He looks around theatrically as well, pulling a face of wide-eyed anticipation. The girl laughs again. He grins at her, and tousles her hair. "Off you go," he whispers, with a playful jerk of his head. She scurries away, still sniffling a little.

He watches her make it all the way down the corridor, and heaves a huge sigh when she disappears from view. His shoulders slump a little, and he runs a hand agitatedly through his hair before turning to continue on his own way down the corridor, beneath me, and out of sight.

I'm still rooted to the stairs.

There's a surging wave of feelings rising up inside of me, led most notably by a massive lump in my throat. My heart is pumping an intoxicatingly broken sensation through my veins with every beat, and I realize my mouth is frozen open, my eyes boring into the spot where James Potter was standing a moment before. I can't seem to change my expression, and I can see how I must look in my mind's eye- a portrait of raw, dumb-struck emotion.

The relief, the contentment of a few minutes before seems suddenly like a dream, and all I can hear as I stand on the deserted steps is the traces of that impossibly tender voice, still reverberating through my mind, filling hollow spaces I never even knew were there.


	4. 4

**4.**

"So… can I ask you something?"

Alice's voice is like a music box, and even though I _know_ what she's about to ask, and it annoys me, I can't help but love her and say with a smile, "Of course, Al."

It's Sunday morning. We are walking around the Great Lake, and I think we are both feeling a strange relief at being away from the chatter-filled dorm, though neither of us can really understand why. She's twirling a three-leaf clover in her small fingers, and I am scanning the ground for a four-leaf sign.

"Do you… " she pauses, frowning at the battered stem of her clover, her chin crinkling in that nut-cracker way of hers, "do you think that after knowing somebody for a long, long time… you can ever… _change_ the way they see you?"

I stop walking, but she continues her dreamy pace, so after a second I have trot to catch back up. That was _not_ what I thought she was going to say at all. But bloody hell if it wasn't exactly what was in my head…

I stare at the golden ringlets that cover back of her head, wondering if she has see-er blood in her.

"What do you… what d'you mean?" I ask cautiously. She sighs and casts her clover aside. I watch it twirl through the air and land with a soft ripple in the black waters. A sprig of green against the dark glass.

"I mean, when you've been friends with someone for ages- _years_- someone who probably just considers you a sister… do you think it's ever possible to change that? Become more?"

Slowly, the tendrils of anxiety that she has found me out begin to unwind, clearing a space for my mind to work out _what _she means. A glimmering remembrance nags at the back of my thoughts, and I frown, trying to catch hold of it.

"Hold on…" I say at length, thinking back to the letters she wrote to me over summer. The _name_ that cropped up over and over, as it has in her letters for the past six years... but in a way that was somehow… _more poignant _than it was before. "Alice! Do you mean- are you talking about- _Frank_?!"

She lets out something between a sigh and a whimper, and raises a hand to her forehead, running it across her brows gently. Then she nods.

"_ALICE!_" I exclaim, forgetting, as I do, that Alice is a gentler creature of earth, and should not be shouted at, no matter the occasion. "Frank? I _knew_ it! I _knew_- well… I didn't really, but I just felt like _something was different! _Did something happen over the summer?"

She meets my eyes, and I can see that she is torn between overwhelm, stress, and pleasure at my clamor. She takes in a little breath, her eyes darting glassily around the grounds behind me, and when she meets my gaze, her blue irises are covered in a sparkling sheen. I feel my face stretch into a look of surprise, feel an arm go out automatically to catch her hand.

"Yes, well, _no_," she bites her lip and lets out something between a laugh and a sob, "I don't _know!_ _Everything_ happened over the summer! -yet.. nothing at all, really."

I nod in understanding, though it's really more a confirmation that I _heard_ her words, because I have absolutely no idea what she's talking about.

"Okay…" I begin, wondering how to give comfort on this mystifying lead. "Did something happen to make _you_… see things differently?"

Alice is chewing on her bottom lip now, her eyes moving rapidly over the fresh grass, and I can only imagine the memories she is whizzing through in that formidable mind of hers,

"It wasn't anything specific, really," she says slowly, her voice a soft smile that is new to my ears, "all of a sudden it was just… everything. He arrived to stay with us for the second half of the summer, before his training started officially, and when he walked in it was like… he was someone new to me already."

She pauses, breathing steadily, and I find myself fighting my own insane feelings; find myself diving eagerly into her dreamy state as though I can live through it. The stage is set. Frank Longbottom, her brother Craig's best friend since birth, has stayed with Alice's family for parts of the summer for as long as I can remember. Apparently his mother is… intense. Not in a bad way, I gather, just in the 'I _cannot_ spend more than three weeks at home' sort of way. As Alice is only a year younger than Craig and Frank, she has always tagged along with their escapades, and has written to me in great detail about the debauchery they cause.

But this summer I could feel something funny in the way she described their adventures. Frank's name was injected into the stories with what I now realized, wanting to smack myself in the head, was giddy revelry. It wasn't just '_so Frank crouched down in the bushes, while Craig hid behind the tree, and I went out to the road, to act as a distraction, you know,'_ as it had been in the past. Suddenly her scrawl had been filled with blind excitement.

'_When I woke up today I met Frank in the hallway, and he told me I looked like Shirley Temple in the mornings- she's a muggle isn't she? What did that mean?' _

'_Tonight at dinner Frank told the most amazing story about his trip to Paris. He met a Banshee out at a bar, and apparently she wanted to pay him to come back to her room with her! Can you believe that? I mean, I suppose I can, but a banshee! When he said no, she screamed and screamed, and nearly paralyzed half the wizards around them. He said-'_

I want to kick myself.

Perhaps I _am_ just a _really_ selfish person! Is this the cruel lesson of the past week after all? How could I not have seen_ immediately_ that Alice's summer was pretty much _entirely_ filled up by tales of Frank Longbottom?!

"- and I just have this feeling in my heart, I _miss_ him. More than I miss my parents or Craig," she looks at me guiltily and I can't help but grin, "and I just can't stop thinking about the silliest things, like how he looked at me _once_ out of about a thousand moments that made up our summer, when I was in my bathing suit-"

"Oooer," I say, nudging her in the waist. She shoots quelling eyes at me, but they're filled with excitement so I don't feel too bad.

"- and how he kept opening doors for me, and how he stays up late reading in the living room, and brushes his teeth about five times in the morning-"

"- sorry, _what_?" I laugh.

"- but at the same time, I know that I'm practically his little _sister_, and he could _never_ think of me that way." She turns hopeless eyes on me, "Lily, I don't know what to do."

I search her eyes curiously, still churning with shock and that feeling of finally putting together a puzzle that has been in the back of your mind for months. I'm surprised at the genuine level of emotion I find looking back at me, and I reach out to take her hands.

"You don't know that," I say softly, "he's practically _your_ brother, but your feelings have changed. Who's to say his can't as well. Did you talk to him?"

She shakes her head quickly, that familiar shy flush creeping into the apples of her cheeks.

"Well. Perhaps you should write to him," I egg on. She looks up, looking frustrated as a bullied kitten. I smile.

"I can't do that," she grumbles, and then she shoots me a look out of the corner of her eye, "_you_ know how it is- overcoming your pride. I can't just _tell_ him. It's been years of things being the completely opposite way of how I want them to be. I can't."

_It's been years of things being the completely opposite way. YOU know how it is._

I blanch. I guess I have been found out after all. A soft breeze picks up on the grounds, touching our faces and prodding at the moment of silence that fell between us. I let it be carried away,

"What do you mean, 'I know how it is'?" I ask cautiously. I never cease to underestimate Alice's powers of observation.

"James Potter," she says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, and my insides clench. She pushes me, her little hand hardly noticeable on my arm, "oh, come on, Lily, if you try to deny it to _me_, I will be very angry with you. I can _see_ you, you know. You have been a stranger all week, and I know it's because James Potter has… moved on."

Her final two words make my heart race forward, like a runner in the final stretch. I make an ambiguous noise in my throat and watch a sparrow scoop up a mouthful of water from the lake.

"Sorry," she says, turning to face me at the change in my demeanor, "I didn't mean to be blunt. I just wish you wouldn't be so stubborn- at least not with _me_."

I repeat the noise and she sighs, falling back into stride with me.

"What are you going to do about that?" she asks, and I'm not sure what she means. Something about James Potter, no doubt.

"I don't know," I say glumly, "I don't know what's wrong with me."

She sighs again, and wraps an arm around my waist as we stroll, leaning her head against my shoulder. Her hair smells of cherry blossoms and baby powder. "Here, here," she sings morosely. I smile.

And we walk like that for a long while. Both trying to figure out the mess of confusion in our hearts and minds, comforted by the peaceful haven of the grounds, and the fact that we are not alone in our predicaments.


	5. 5

**5.**

It's a Wednesday when James Potter and I have the first enjoyable conversation we have _ever _shared, in the six years that we've known each other.

The week following Alice's confession (and my semi-admittal) of our disobedient hearts, is filled with James Potter bouncing about the school (as he does), completely happy and completely unconcerned by 'what Lily Evans is up to', and with me trying not to notice as my eyes find his every move on their own accord. I hear his laughter ringing out at the ends of corridors a couple times per day, and I make sure to put off an air of cool politeness that is _just_ as strong as his, every time he says 'Hi' in passing, or asks me a question about our Head's Duties.

In short, I spend my week in a weird kind of denial— furiously trying to pretend that I'm not hyper aware of James Potter's every action, and that I'm not irritated to my core by the way his eyes stay on me for an _average_ amount of moments as he scans hallways and the Great Hall. That they don't flick over me _too_ quickly, or linger too long— both hopeful signs of my standing out to him— but that they travel over me normally, as if he truly doesn't differentiate my face from a sea of casual aquaintences.

On Wednesday, we plan to meet in the empty Charms classroom, because we need to come up with a game plan for organizing the punishments the Prefects are assigning left and right for the heightened level of violence between classes this term. I walk into the room with a slightly damp neckline from the late-summer heat, trying to ignore the giddy warmth somewhere in my chest at the thought of being alone with him, something I seemed to have taken completely for granted for six years. He's there, with his head on the desk, arms folded across the thick stack of parchment detailing every incident from the term so far. I stop, wondering how best to greet him, and he shifts as he realizes I'm there.

"Evans, is that you?" he mutters, and it's muffled and dramatic. I smile, despite myself, and say, "Yes, Potter," making sure to sound every bit as pained and unimpressed as I have for the last six years. He makes a deathly sound and bangs his head gently on the paper-strewn desk.

"Glad to see you've gotten a rousing head start," I say lightly, keeping up a raised eyebrow but biting back a grin, "here I was, worried that you'd have a fit of laziness and leave all the work for me."

"Would I do that?" he mumbles into the desk, lifting his head with a heavy sigh. The words 'hex' and 'year' are legible in the ink imprint on his forehead, and his hair is even more of a tangled mess in tonight's muggy evening air. I can't believe how absurdly charming I find all of this, and try to imagine my way back to how I felt about the sight of his hair _last_ year, which I distinctly remember was _annoyed_ and slightly _repulsed_.

"Here's a thought," he says loudly, stretching his shoulders. _He must be sore from Quiddich_, I think, powerless to the way my eyes don't want to look away from the lines of his arms as he stretches them above each side of his head. "Let's just chuck every Slytherin who draws his wand in the corridors _out_, and make this meeting a lot less painful."

He's smiling at the corner of his mouth, as he flips through the parchment with his usual, slightly hyper way of tackling a project, and I try to ignore the dull feeling in my chest at the good-humored way he's making it clear that doesn't want to be here.

"_Here's_ a better thought," I say with a grin, leaning in secretively, "let's just take this meeting to go _off_ Voldemort, and nip this all at the source."

He falters in his perusal through the parchments, and his eyes flicker up to me in small surprise. I notice both of these things, as well as his little grin and sky-high eyebrows, and try to ignore the way my heart kickstarts.

"There's the fire," he says almost fondly, and I'm alarmed at the way I'm filled with this wild, possessive joy at the sound of it. He gives me a wary look over his glasses, and I know we're both thinking of the countless times over the years that my 'fire' has been directed at him. He snorts easily and continues scanning the Prefect's reports, as if he'd done nothing more special than say hi to a mate in the corridor. To him it _was_ nothing more special, I try to remind myself, as my head swims with that warm 'old-friend' look that had been in his eyes as he teased me. "Sorry to keep you in suspense Evans, I'm sure you are _dying_ to get your eyes on these," he tosses the stack across the table at me, leaning back in his chair and looking like he's holding back a smile.

I pick them up, double taking at his face as he looks more and more like he wants to smile. "What?" I ask, trying to sound impatient instead of amused. James shakes his head, rocking backward on the back legs of his chair and running his hands rapidly over his face and hair,

"Nothing, they're just _so_ bloody dull!" he chuckles in a pained way, "I'm just happy that I at least get to watch _you_ have to read them— it'll liven me back up a bit. Honestly— these Prefects— they're so rigid," he grumbles, and I feel a flare of irritation at his usual Prince-y behavior, which is at least ground I know. _Not all of us could be made a Head on the basis of _not_ having been a Prefect, and putting in nothing but a good solid six years of troublemaking_. But I hold my tongue and let him continue, amused by the truly imploring look he's giving me and the overly-dramatic way he's rubbing his chin. "Take a look at Dolores Prinblum's report. It's nearly two pages for a fanged-frisbee."

I can't help but laugh at the seriousness of his expression, and glance down at the parchment in my hands. The writing seems endless, and suddenly the notion of double-checking punishments and trying to control the chaos in the corridors seems absolutely ludicrous. I pause for a moment, and then set the stack down between us, grimacing at him. He chuckles with delighted satisfaction at this out-of-character act, and my heart swells with the realization that we've been in each other's lives long enough to know each other's characters at least _that_ well.

"What are you doing?" he asks, knowing he's egging me on with the tone of his voice and the twinkle in his eyes.

"How about we…" I feign a moral deliberation for a moment, then grin at him impishly, "put our faith in the good Prefects of Hogwarts this week, and _not_ go through these."

"Evans," he groans with happiness and my stomach flips over, "don't talk dirty to me."

Before I can even flush or think of a quip back, the parchment has been vanished, and he is leaning back in his chair, surveying me with wildly twinkling eyes. "Excellent idea. Shows great confidence in our school, I think."

I smile in response to the rapid series of gestures that one receives from James Potter— the grin, the hand through the hair, the eyes darting out the window, the foot starting up a tapping under the desk.

"Well, you're welcome, Potter, I just bought you two hours to make whatever trouble you have on your plate tonight," I say, following his gaze out the window. Then, and I don't know why, I think because I just want to prolong a _conversation_ with him, I say, "What _are_ you going to do? Go flying?"

It's idiotic and girlish, and I want to cringe as I hear it hanging in the air between us, and I want to smack myself because _never_, _ever_, have I cared about the rubbish that comes out of my mouth like _this_. James raises his eyebrows in a slight smirk, and says slowly,

"Yeah… maybe. It's my night off from practice so I might use it to work on my technical flight skills," he shrugs, and I _almost_ want to roll my eyes at the way his tone just lilted into a brag towards the end, but I'm torn between that and the image of him drilling on the Pitch alone, focused and sweaty in the uncomfortably warm fall weather—

I clear my throat, "Cool."

He looks back at me, his eyebrows raised again.

"You alright, Evans?"

"_Yes_, I'm just _talking _to you— why are you looking at me like I'm mentally unstable?"

"Because you've _definitely_ implied in the past that mental unstabilty is what it must take for a girl to speak to me."

"Stuff it—" I laugh, suddenly flustered, tossing my hair to air out my damp neck, and giving him a look that I hope comes off as impatient, "I'm not a _girl_ _talking to you_—"

His questioning look intensifies. My head feels hot and I sit up straighter, wondering why his gaze suddenly makes me literally squirm, "—you know what I mean. I'm just your… friend, and I'm making _friendly_ conversation, seeing as we just gave ourselves a few minutes to _chat _and bung the dung."

He chuckles, looking at me dubiously. "Are we friends?"

His eyes meet mine and a weird buzzing seems to envelop my body, and I breathe and try to pay attention to what he said— wondering what he is thinking, and if the buzz around us is a tangible thing, or purely in my mind. _Are_ we friends? A hundred memories of more than unpleasant exchanges between us come to me in a millisecond, and I blink slowly. _No_, friends isn't the word.

"Of course we are," is what I actually _say,_ and I'm embarrassed to hear the tiniest note of pleading in my own voice. I think his eyes, for just a moment, grow soft and incredibly hopeful, but it's only a flash, and I'm pretty sure I imagined it because the next second he's grinning and leaning back in his chair with lofty ease.

"Whatever you say, Evans," he shrugs, giving me a last look over his glasses that seems to hold something darker, and that makes me ache with a desperate sort of feeling I've never felt before. It's then that I get a hold of myself and fiercely check my emotions into behaving. I'm sure that if I don't they'll start to hang_ physically_ in the air— and he'll bump into them and find me out.

I remark casually about Sirius' newfound glee in inappropriate advances towards Professor McGonagall. We laugh about the collection of Sirius' boldest moves over the last week, and we laugh some more about the Ravenclaw Prefect, Dolores Prinblum, and her overly-enthusiastic rule-abiding. Time carries us on a wave of flowing conversation and easy laughter, and before I know it, twenty minutes have gone by and we have been sitting in the empty charms classroom like two natural pals, with no insults thrown and no yells echoing around the stone walls.

Why did I never before appreciate how _simple_ and _happy_ James Potter is? Why didn't I realize how naturally we can joke around when we're not on the defense with each other— walking on eggshells and speaking with spears?

There is a lull in our talk, and his eyes sweep over to the window, taking in the fading light, and he gives me a quick grin, kicks my foot lightly under the table, and says, "Gotta run, Evans, cup won't win itself," and moves out of the room with a lazy wave of his wand that stacks everything on the table effortlessly, and sends it packing into his bag. I say a casual, if not slightly derisive,

"_Right-_ bye."

And I watch him go, feeling ridiculously conflicted. A light in my heart is glowing through my body because I can see now that there is something undeniably_ good_ and _right_ about James Potter, that I could never, ever, put into words. I can't believe the difference that simply _letting_ myself _be_ around him makes; rather than wasting all my energy trying to force _him_ to be something more… Un-_James. _When I let myself be, who he_ is _suddenly slides into place beside me- natural and fiercely right.

And a cold spot is also growing in my heart, because I think all that it took for me to truly realize this, was for him to genuinely give up on me.


	6. 6

**6.**

Marlene is acting weird, and by weird I mean quiet and thoughtful and humble, as opposed to her usual whirlwind of chaos.

Alice and I have grabbed a supper of biscuits and drumsticks wrapped in napkins from the Great Hall, and have brought it to eat in solitude in the common room, in spirit of the angst-filled bleeding hearts that we now are. We find Marlene there already, sitting in the best and biggest armchair by the fire, in the nearly empty common room. She seems to be skipping dinner, which she is sometimes prone to, and Alice and I exchange a look before going over to sit on the loveseat across from her.

"Mar?" Alice says gently, when Marlene, who obviously knows we are there, ignores us to stare fixedly at the dancing flames. I smile to myself at the way we all revert to first-syllables-only in times of need.

"Hmm?" Marlene looks at us with amusement in her eyes at our tentative approach. Her smile, which is usually luminous and easy, seems to come from somewhere deeper and more sad tonight, like the sun shining through the crags of a mountain silhouette.

"You okay?" Alice asks, with the wide-eyed concern that always makes Marlene squirm. I grin at her from over Alice's shoulder as Alice persists, "Is it Craig?"

Craig Davies, captain, star, and stud of the Ravenclaw Quiddich team, and Marlene's unlikely boyfriend of the past year and a half. Until this summer that is. I say unlikely _not_ because he is in any way unbefitting of Marlene— on the contrary, he is the quiet, moody, _incredibly_ handsome type that anyone would expect to see with a girl as captivating as my Miss McKinnon— Nay, I say unlikely because for Marlene, the ever-free spirit, to have had a boyfriend at _all_, was always an oddity beyond any of us. She is so fiercely independent, so wildly hormonal and impulsive, that I clearly remember thinking that her having a boyfriend was a running joke for at least a week. _She_ says that something about Craig's dark mystique was enough to tame her into normalcy. _I think_, that after her father died in our fifth year, she started dating stupid, boring Craig in an attempt to try and _force_ herself out of her reckless and unbridled ways, which had always brought her father worry. Whatever the true reason, it ended cataclysmically over the summer, when she found out that Craig had been messing around with Glinda Bobwin since the end of the year. Git.

"No!" Marlene laughs, catching my eye, and we share a grin at Alice's tender heart, "I haven't thought about that knobhead for weeks."

Well. I doubt that this is true, as we have been in school for only a few weeks, and she has been confronted by him and Glinda mooning round the corridors nearly every day, but I _do_ believe her, that Craig isn't what's on her mind. Marlene is the strongest person I know, and when she found out, I think I saw her cry once; when Alice and I went over to her mom's house, who was gone on one of her almost constant business trips, to find her pacing the kitchen in her bathrobe, looking starved and heartbroken, but tackling the issue with her usual warrior-like force. She sobbed, she yelled, she asked us with heart wrenching vulnerability, 'What am I going to do?', and then, seemingly by the magic of her own unstoppable spirit, she moved on. Better than that, she had become our Marlene again, and not the strange wife-y character she had been playing all year. With Craig gone, I think she had been confronted by her father's death all over again, but by the time I saw her next, after a weeklong vacation with my own family where I cringed and stressed nonstop at the thought of Marlene left all alone in her house, she had been light and open, in the way people are after they've gone to hell and back, and have faced down what was waiting there.

She had endured seeing Craig and Glinda together for the first time with a dignified posture and a wry smile, and hadn't said a word about it all term. And then she had truly become the Marlene we knew and loved again— back to the world of boys. Marlene loves boys more than any girl I have ever encountered. And more than that, they love _her_ more than any girl I have ever encountered. _She actually kissed James once!_ I realize with a shock, during a party in our fourth year. I suppress the weird mixture of a smile and a dull wave of something empty in my chest at the memory of the look of mixed pride and horrified guilt he had given me when I walked in on them.

"Okay," Alice is saying, and I can tell she's really trying to reel in her tone of concern and her urge to press, because we both know that those are surefire ways to make Marlene close up like Gringott's lowest vaults, "only checking, because I know that the Halloween Ball is coming up, and I know that it must be difficult to imagine—"

"_Alice_," Marlene interrupts, looking like she wants to laugh again. She turns her body fully towards us, and shakes her head at the biscuit I hold out for her, "I truly don't care about Craig and Glinda, it doesn't give me a moment's worry, even to think of them dancing to one of Peeve's best waltzes at the _Halloween Ball_."

I snort at the utter sarcasm at the end of this statement, and Alice backs off, holding her little hands up, and sitting back to gnaw on her drumstick. Cute as a little, carnivorous doxy. I grin at my two best friends, suddenly overcome by a strange sense of contentment, and settle back against the spongy loveseat as well.

"_Bugger_ me, I completely forgot about the dratted Ball," I say, digging into my drumstick as well. Marlene snorts,

"What do you mean, you _forgot_— _you_ are supposed to be the one organizing it!"

I laugh, and leave it at that, because, _yes_, the Heads have the special October treat of organizing this Ball that Dumbledore and McGonagall think will 'lifts everyone's spirits through this unnaturally dark year'. And _yes_, it is nearly midway through October, and I had nearly forgotten about it. Call it selective memory. In truth, I have been avoiding James Potter like the plague, and lazy bugger that he is about these types of things, he hasn't been exactly eager to get to 'party planning' either. So yes, our Ball is as of yet, completely unorganized.

"_Who_ are _you_ ladies planning to take as your lovely gentle-dates?" I ask, unable to help myself or my wry tone. It's mostly rhetorical, and is met with nearly identical groans of disgust. I laugh.

"Can't we all just take each other?" Alice grumbles, though it's sweet even when she does that.

"Certainly," I reply, "in fact, as I'm in charge of putting it on, I suppose I _could_ just ban all the boys entirely."

"That sounds nice," Alice sighs happily.

"Well, _hold _on—" Marlene interjects.

I giggle, feeling ridiculously bolstered by their company, and suddenly wishing that I _could_ just spend all my time with them, and never have to think about boys, or rather, a certain boy in particular, ever again. I can tell Alice is thinking the same thing by the way she's eating her chicken practically in slow motion, staring into space above Marlene's head. I look at Marlene. She's uncharacteristically calm and pensive, and I wonder what _is_ bothering her, if it's not Git-face Davies.

I think and feel my way back through the past couple weeks, nudged by the same nagging feeling that led me to realize that Alice had fallen for Frank Longbottom. A thread of truth tugs at my chest, and I follow it cautiously.

"You could… ask Sirius Black," I say slowly, watching Marlene carefully.

Marlene and Sirius have forever been drawn together— like a bizarre set of human magnets— alike in some fundamental way that I can _feel_, but not put my finger on. Ever since they both discovered the opposite sex, which was way before any of the rest of us, they have been _wildly_ inappropriate towards each other... yet neither of them ever seemed particularly interested in _actually_ getting together. Which I always thought was strange. Still, Marlene loves to plot ways to get a rise out of Sirius, and to regale us with the more… _emboldened_ things he's said to her, but now that I think of it, she's been rather stony on the Sirius-front all week. She hasn't had any amusing quotes to relay to us, and I know for a _fact _that he has really been on a roll lately with his unabashed flirtations— though I think it's mostly been directed at McGonagall.

I remember all this, and like with Alice and Frank, I realize how suspicious it is only in hindsight, and I kick myself for not noticing sooner— for being so damn bloody _focused_ on James bloody Potter. Of _all _things.

I remember this and I watch Marlene's face carefully. Marlene must be watched carefully, because she's such a master at composing herself. I'm sure though, that I see a flicker pass through her eyes, a look of irritation that I've put my finger somewhere close to the nerve that's really bothering her. She looks at me for a few seconds, both of us locked in a brief but fierce battle of trying to read the other, and then says in a tone that catches me off-guard, because it is _much_ calmer and more deadly than is warranted,

"_No._ I can't."

And I leave it at that.

I leave it at that because Marlene McKinnon doesn't do a damned thing unless she wants to, and I know better after seven years than to waste my energy by asking before she's ready to tell us. I think I am growing up, because in a _most_ Un-Lily-like gesture, I manage to let go of the surging curiosity in my heart, and I am able to see in a moment of clarity, what we all need.

And I offer an Olive-branch.

"Marlene, I like James Potter."

I say it calmly, trying to ignore the dual sensations of horror and excitement that confessing the words _out loud_ brings forth, "I _really_ _like_, James _Potter_."

I let it hang there, in one of those slow-motion moments, and I take in the feel of it in the room, the open shock in Marlene's face.

"And Alice has fallen in love with Frank Longbottom," I continue, ignoring the horrified squeak next to me. We are all best friends, and we need to not be so bloody proud, "They don't know, we don't know if we _ever_ want them to know, and now you are the only other person who knows. And it's humiliating and it's frightening, and it's bloody agony, because it's James Potter and Frank Longbottom, and they are probably the two messiest matches the Universe could have possibly thrown at us," I add in a rush, suddenly desperate to get some of the feelings that course through my mind all day, every day— _out._ "So you don't need to tell us a thing, but if you ever decide to, you are welcome to join our lonely hearts club— no judgement allowed."

The room is so still and so silent, and Marlene looks at me with a girlish amazement that I rarely see in her eyes. Alice looks at me furiously, but then after a tense and red-faced moment, laughs into her hands. Marlene laughs shakily too, and says,

"… _Okay_… okay."

And she nods to herself, and the room feels full of the comfortable sweetness of confession, and our talk turns to whispered elaboration on Alice's part, and grudging further admissions on mine. We cringe and console and laugh, and then we move on to other subjects, all notably happier- all notably less lonely.

And although Marlene doesn't tell us what's really bothering her, I can tell that her heart has been lightened to know where Alice and I are at. I can sense that she _is_ part of our Sad Girl's Club. And I know she will tell us why in time.

I leave it at that.


	7. 7

**7.**

Is there anything more ridiculous, really, than a _ball_?

I ponder this, aided greatly by the presence of a very moody James Potter and his endless supply of useless suggestions, which are growing more and more sarcastic and outlandish by the minute, as we sit in a secluded corner of the common room, 'planning'.

It's Saturday morning and we are up at the crack of nine o'clock, because it's a Hogsmeade Day and he has Quiddich Practice at ten, so this is the only time he could 'squeeze me in'. I already blew up at him with mild annoyance last night, when he used that very phrasing, and am presently trying to let go of both my irritation and my longing to be back in bed. I got up at eight, so I would have time to make myself look… a little extra presentable (though I'll deny it to the death), before grabbing a quick breakfast and meeting him back up here, and I keep stifling yawns every thirty seconds or so. _He_ on the other hand has, I'm quite sure, literally just rolled out of bed, an absolutely absurd tousled mess, I might add. He loped into the common room, spotted me, beelined, and proceeded to eat half of my breakfast as if I had brought it up for both of us. I'm insanely grumpy and don't have any patience for my own mind, which is alternately suppressing a small kind of pleasure at the way he so comfortably sips my tea and finishes my half-eaten sausage, and wonders forbiddingly what he looked like, all tousle haired and fuzzy-eyed _before_ he put on the loose clothing he's wearing now.

"_So_," I sigh, deciding to just completely ignore his suggestion that we employ veela to dance onstage alongside our musical act, which he thinks should be a group called '_The Trouser-Flobberworms'_, "do you think we should have some sort of fright house? Like the one that Prefects organized for our second year?"

He shrugs with a wide-eyed face that manages to say both, 'don't ask me,' and 'I don't care,' with equal force. I set my quill down on the pad of various notes and reminders that _I_ alone have been writing thus far.

"You know," I say, taking care to make my voice as pleasant as possible, "you are being absolutely useless."

I only really result in sounding rather _delicately_ insane. He pauses his ravaging of my french toast to spare me a withering glance, and I can see there's a serious note of _actual _irritation in his eyes.

"_Thanks_," he says, with equal sarcastic politeness, "you know, given the amount of _work_ and _practice_ and… other stresses I've under this week, it _would_ be nice to get a little credit for being here at all," he crosses his arms over his chest and sweeps a glare out the window, giving a short and humorless laugh, "… but I should know better than to expect something like that from you."

He meets my eyes, and there's a strange, unbalanced fire lurking there. His back has straightened in that impossibly confident, athletes way of his, and I'm experiencing too many simultaneous responses to react.

That old, familiar fire is kicking up in me at once, and I register the usual surge of disbelief that he could be _such_ an insensitive brat. I'm also hurt, in an embarrassing and vulnerable way, and I think my lips have parted slightly, brows lifted, eyes doe-y, in a dead give-away. I wipe my expression clean, wondering what he meant by 'not expecting something like that from me', and '_other_ stresses'. Last night was a full moon, and given the sleepless shadows under his eyes and everything I know from the ravings of Severus Snape, I think I _might_ have a vague inkling of what the latter meant.

His eyes have narrowed slightly, and he's watching me with suspicious confusion, I think because of the plain hurt that had been written all over my features a second before. So I do the only thing I can think of to erase the moment. I revert back to familiar ground.

"_Well_," I spit, with an equally humorless laugh, "Merlin, if I had only known the _trials _and tribulations of the life of James Potter, I would have had a plaque waiting for you— along with _my _breakfast, this morning. _Thank_ you Potter, for gracing me with your presence. You'll have to forgive me for forgetting what a _special_ and _precious_ gift it is. So kind of you to deign—"

"Bugger," he curses a few more times under his breath as he looks out the window again, seemingly trying to master himself, "Don't even start with me, Lily."

My lips part in surprise once again, because he called me _'Lily_', which I can't remember him doing _ever_, and hearing it in his strong baritone shoots something hot down my insides, but it also holds the insult that he's been throwing at me for weeks— of indifference. Somehow, my first name, especially said in such a frustrated and weary tone, seems so indirect— so much less personal than the 'Evans' that has been my title in his voice for years, always said in varying degrees of teasing and affection.

I'm horrified to find that all of this is just too much, and is forming a dangerous lump of anger and disappointment in my throat, and I spring into action to mask it.

"You selfish, arrogant _git_," I snap, my own back becoming rigidly upright, chin set defiantly, because I'll be _damned_ if I show him a sliver of vulnerability, "I am dealing with _just_ as much as you, and am practically planning this whole buggering _ball_ on my own on top of it!"

"You know what? That's just fucking like you— on your high and mighty horse, _completely_ ignoring the feelings and efforts of everyone else around you—"

"_Efforts_?" I shriek, my whole body buzzing, my ears filling with a whining panic, with the crushing sense that this argument is actually about things that are _much_ bigger, much heavier and more built-up than this stupid, God-forsaken _ball_, "your efforts have been pretty nonexistent lately, Potter. And here you are, whining about how I'm not giving you any credit for _squeezing me in_—"

"Oh my God," it's muffled because he's burying his face in his hands, rubbing them over his forhead and neurotically running them through his hair. Making him look like an _absolute knobhead_. He's leaning way back in his chair now, shaking his head, and laughing in a way that I know from experience means that he's about to explode. But to my surprise, he takes a dramatically deep breath, laughs into one hand, and then looks at me like I'm a child he has to humor so that it'll stop wailing. "_Alright_, Lily, I'm here. What do you need from me."

He says it like this is genuinely the last place on Earth he'd like to be, and it's all too much. My name, his pitying look, his impatiently crossed arms over a chest that is _so_ much more broad than I remember, causes something in me to snap under the pressure of being pulled in so many directions at once.

"You're such an asshole," I whisper, looking down at my lap and blinking quickly to get rid of the momentary glassiness that pools over my vision, "you're _such_ an idiot, James."

There's an unexpected silence, and when I'm sure my eyes look completely normal, I look up. His expression is a bit frozen, perhaps because, without meaning to, I just called him 'James'. We stare each other down for a moment, and his irritation seems to return in full force.

"What!" he nearly yells, raising his arms on either side of his body, "_Lily_— I'm _here_…" he lets his arms fall to his sides in the same beat that my stomach does a strange drop, my hands going cold. Then he looks broodingly at the grandfather clock on the wall behind me. "And I only have ten minutes before I have to go. Let's just get this over with."

"You know what?" I say, closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose so I don't have to look at him. "Just go. I'll plan it. Boys are just useless at this sort of thing, maybe you can't help it. I don't know."

The silence is between us again, and he's trying to read me. I look back at him, feeling genuinely and frighteningly calm.

"Really Potter, it's fine," I assure him. Anything so he'll just go. The common room has been filling slowly over the last hour, and we are once again, for the hundredth time in our seven years, a spectacle. The old Lily and James show— never disappointing onlookers for a good, solid _row_.

He looks like he's going to protest- to apologize, perhaps? Offer to be more helpful, less of a brat? But I can only imagine what my own face must be reflecting, and he leaves it, raising his hands in surrender, and half mouthing, half breathing, an, '_Ohhkay_'.

He stands, grabbing his empty and pathetic notebook, and gives me one last furtive look. And then comes the kicker. Completely out of left field, soaring over to knock me over the head while I was already dazed-dumb with emotion. A feminine voice clears her throat.

James and I both look at the sound, to see Penny Wood standing a few feet behind him.

"Everything alright?" she says dubiously, raising her eyebrows and looking between us, her gaze hardening slightly when it comes to rest on me. I'm about to say 'Yes…', full of confusion as to why she's making it her business, but James gets there first to answer both her question… and mine.

"Yeah, yeah," he says offhandedly, laughing that dry laugh again and shaking his head— shaking it off. Then he, as if just remembering, and in his usual hyper way of moving, closes the distance between them to kiss her hurriedly on the cheek. She smiles up at him, and he smiles down at her. She's a head shorter than him, and could tuck her curly-haired head right under his chin if she wanted to. He moves to get away from the area we've been occupying, and I can tell he's highly uncomfortable to be doing this in front of me. "Thanks, Evans," he says with an awkward sort of regret. At our row? Or does he know, deep down, that the tables have turned and now I, Lily Evans, am experiencing the same crushing disappointment I must have cause _him_ to feel for years?

He doesn't meet my eyes, so I'm left guessing.

Penny, however, gives me that hardened look for a few seconds more, and then moves to follow him. I hear her fading voice offer to 'walk him down to the pitch…'

And I know my mouth is gaping open, and a stunned column of ice has formed in my chest, but they're through the portrait already, so at least I don't have to bother hiding it.


	8. 8

**8.**

"Here, y'are, lads! Nothing like a good stiff brew to lift the spirits after life cracks you over the head!" Alice says in a vicious and deep Scottish accent, clapping two Butterbeers down in front of me and Marlene.

We stare.

She shrugs.

I giggle.

The Three Broomsticks is most cozily crowded, with students, teachers, and townsfolk alike, and the warm hum of talk in the air has already lifted my spirits considerably. Not that they _needed_ to be lifted.

I have firmly and resolutely decided to _not_ let my spirits be affected by James Potter anymore. Ever since the deep and public blow that was our ridiculous fight, followed by the very _un_-ridiculous, in fact painfully _normal_, parading of himself and Penny Wood around the common room, I have decided enough is enough— I am not going to _mope_ around any longer, letting my own feelings be affected by the knobbiest of all the _boys_ in the castle. It is most unlike me and it must be cast aside. And so far, I must say, I have been wildly successful.

Three hours, going on strong.

Alice doesn't understand this as clearly as I do, and is giving me a wary look, as if my smile is hiding some inner bomb.

"Hey," I toss a napkin at her, "there is _no_ need to look at me like that, my little kniffler, I'm fine. Honestly."

She smiles brightly, and nods, not breaking eye-contact, "Okay, _good_."

A challenge. I grin, and she grins back, a note of stubbornness in each of our expressions.

"Honestly, this is good," I say conspiratorially, leaning back in my seat, and taking a hearty drink of butterbeer, relishing in its warm sweetness, "I think this might be exactly what I needed to just nip this all in the bud. I have been absolutely ridiculous!" I widen my eyes and shake my head, chuckling, looking at Alice and Marlene, and not deaf to the strange pitch of my laugh. "They are a far better suited match, and now maybe his energy won't be quite so… erm— inviting of attraction."

They nod in neutral, wide-eyed, light-footed agreement, and I know that we all _know_ that I'm full of dung, but I'm honestly _so_ tired of being 'little girl lovesick' that I _have_ to do something else, and speaking this way, however in-genuine it may be, gives me the first flickerings of pride I've felt in myself all week, so I have to keep it up. I have to.

I shrug, taking another gulp, wiping my mouth, and set my mug down on the worn oak table.

"_So_!" I say, with my most bright-eyed look, which I note, puts identical and immediate looks of _concern_ on their faces, "how would you two like to help me plan… the _Halloween Ball_!"

Marlene snorts, and Alice is looking at me like I am insane. I keep up my bright smile.

"Sure." Marlene speaks at last, sounding like she has just been asked by her mother to spend the day helping her pick out new fringe for all the curtains in the house. I know because this happened, while I was there, three summers ago.

I pull out my notebook, and lead the team with spirit, plunging into the task ahead. Marlene and Alice, though dragging their feet out the gate, eventually guzzle enough butterbeer, which I keep in plentiful supply, to join me in my enthusiasm. In an hour, we have nearly finished it all, down to the last, ludicrous detail. Our ideas, between sugary sips and giggles and the crescendo of excited feminine voices that is the backing track for all mischievous plotting between girlfriends, have grown more and more outlandish and sarcastically ridiculous, until my last three notes read:

— _Electrocrucio spell on all chairs during dancing, to ensure no sitting and sulking_

— _Lumario Spotlight spell and sparklers for the best dancing couple_

— _Then, release the bats_

I close my notebook with the upmost satisfaction, happily reminded of the power and joy of girls in numbers, and pleased that we have done a far better job of planning this ball than James Potter and his goons _ever_ could have.

"Cheers, loves," I say, holding the last sip of my third butterbeer aloft. Two equally low glasses smash gently into mine, and we drain them.

Then something most unusual happens.

It's as if my body senses a moment coming, because I experience everything with a cinematic slowness and poetry. My last swallow of butterbeer slips down my throat, and I grin like a loon at the girls, whose faces are equally alight with giddy pleasure. Marlene looks especially lovely, transformed by happiness as only she can be. Never have I met someone whose moods are so extreme, so captivating, and so transformative. When she is happy and bright, as she is now, she becomes this golden magnet to everyone around her; in some sort of luminous spotlight all her own, all dimples and wild chestnut curls— all radiant cheeks and feminine excitement.

I see her this way, feeling _myself_ captivated by her all-consuming joy, as I hear the door open, feel the dramatic gust of chilly fall wind assault my face and bare calves. It brings in a scent of chimney smoke and baked goods, and a nostalgia tinges my heart, so I look belatedly at the door, towards the source of all this interruption.

It's Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Remus is looking with woeful disinterest around the bar, shrugging his shoulders a bit to warm up, and Sirius is looking at our table with an expression that I would have _never_, _ever_, have thought I would see on the face of _Sirius Black_.

It's directed entirely at Marlene, but it takes _my_ breath away, because if there's one other person on Earth that shares Marlene's ability to captivate with her raw emotion, it is Sirius Black, as every girl to ever set foot in the Hogwarts Castle during his school career could tell you.

I can only describe it as… _broken_, but in this absolutely beautiful, loving way, the likes of which I have never seen on a boy's face before. It's yet another bizarre, jolting reminder that we are all growing up, because there is something much stronger, much more adult, much more _man_ than _boy_ about it. His shoulders are back, his chin tipped slightly up, mouth parted, eyebrows knitted and raised with simultaneous surprise and longing. And his _eyes_— those are glazed in a look of such intense lust and _care_, that if I _could_, I would have looked away, as if I had walked in on him in the height of passionate and heartbroken lovemaking.

Sirius shares James' unfaltering, straight-backed confidence, _often_ tipping over into cockiness,— only where James is ridiculously dramatic and mischievously sweet, Sirius is a bit… haunted. It's slight, and it's subtle, but every time his boisterous attack on life subsides, every time his shock-value sense of humor wanes, every time his delighted (albeit a bit deranged) laugh comes to rest, it's there. This sense of deep heaviness settling back down on itself, like a torrential and joyous series of waves falling still into the dark and scary depths of an ocean.

And that's all there now. That easy, aggressively confident resting posture, that slightly inward haunting... but his unbridled energy is there too— only it's entirely focused in his eyes, in _that expression_, which says more to _me now_ as an _outsider_ than I have ever heard Sirius Black _really _say, in all the condescending speeches and elated jokes I have heard him make in these six years.

I eventually come to my senses enough to look back at Marlene, and find myself equally floored by the energy radiating off of her.

She's poised in her chair like a little feminine mirror of him, shoulders back, hair especially big and wild, making the rest of her look delicately small. Her face is _just _as insanely uncharacteristic— soft and _vulnerable_ as I have _never_ seen her. Her eyes are wide and full of a similar longing, though tinged with fear. Her lips are parted, cheeks flushed, and there is this absolutely mad buzzing in the air around them, as though it's turned solid, almost as tangible as the rush and sparks of an actual _spell_. I stare at my friend, thinking I have never seen anything more beautiful, thinking that whatever _this _is, it is Marlene's most captivating rawness yet.

Sirius is the first to break, as boys usually are— especially in the case of girls as daintily strong as Marlene— and his chaotic energy seems to return to him, jolting him a little out of the wormhole they had just fallen into. His hands give a funny little jerk, and he breaks the gaze to look down and around him, as if getting his bearings. Remus says something to him and he turns and dips his head to the shorter boy's height to listen. He gives a shadow of a laugh and says something back, looking disoriented. They order drinks, and I can tell he's trying to charm Rosmerta with his aggressive humor to give them firewhiskey, but he is uncharacteristically sweet and boyish when she eventually chides him. Rosmerta, though sassy as usual, _does_ seem more charmed than ever by the change in his energy, and looking around, I can see at least five pairs of female eyes glued to his back. His back, _that_ is as straight and dominant as ever, as is the rest of his body... but one of his _hands_ is convulsing in the most _subtly nervous_ way I have ever seen. Twitches that are so slight that I don't think anyone else besides me notices.

I feel my own mouth part in delighted shock that _I_ am bearing witness to the cracking of Sirius Black. Six years bloody coming.

Remus sees me looking, no small wonder, because I am _staring_ with eyes like a stupefied house elf, smiles lopsidedly, nods, and dips his head through the crowd to make his way over. Sirius looks at his retreating back, doubletaking, and looks down into his mug, seemingly to brace himself, as he realizes where Remus is headed. I think I witness a tiny internal struggle, culminating the decision that he can't just _not_ come over, and he whirls around to follow, his jaw tight and his eyes steely and fixed on a table of girls to the side of the room, in unmistakable frustration with himself. I hear Marlene strike up frenzied conversation with Alice, and look at her to see she has expertly wiped all vulnerability from her person, to be replaced with her specialty— enigmatic but untouchable social butterfly.

" 'Lo ladies," Remus says amiably, tipping his drink at us. He turns to me, looking sympathetic and knowing, "how's the Ball-planning coming?"

"Ah— _much_ more productive without my dead-weight Head-Partner, actually," I say lightly, smiling at him. We share a look of tired exasperation at James' general personality flaws.

"Glad to hear it," he says, but I'm distracted and far more interested in our friends; this clashing of titans that is happening— so desperately muffled that I wonder if Remus and Alice even have a clue. Marlene breaks from her animated conversation with Alice to glance at the boys in an unaffected and mildly-pleasantly-surprised sort of way.

"Hello, Remus!" she sings. She glances at Sirius, her indifferent cheeriness not cracking, "Hey, Black."

"Hey," he says, his voice much softer and less aggressive than usual. He is radiating a tamer, more sweetly boyish form of the spell he was under earlier, "how are you?"

But Marlene has already turned back to Alice, continuing to tell a rambunctious story, and his question goes unanswered. He smiles slightly to himself, straightening his back to an even more perfect degree, and glancing at Remus, waiting seemingly desperately for him to be ready to leave. I see his hand, under cover of the lip of the table, start its convulsive gripping of something invisible once again.

We all say our goodbyes, somewhat stiffly, and they make their way away from our table. Sirius says something, looking Remus dead in the eye, and Remus looks bemused. Sirius drains his mug in one go, looking at Remus pointedly as he sets it down on an abandoned table. Remus looks irritated, but manages to finish his in a few seconds, with only one break for air, and they make their way towards the door.

"Oh, dear, look at those third year girls! They have a puffskein!" Marlene remarks casually, with just the right amount of longing and excitement in her voice to be convincing. And as Alice looks over at the baby blue ball of fluff three tables away, I look at Marlene in time to see her gaze fixed glassily on the little creature, taking a deep, shaky breath and laying her palms, which I can see are trembling, flat on the table.

She lets her breath out in a sigh, looking like a young woman who has just nearly escaped being crushed by a tidal wave, and the sound is lost in the whistling rush of wind that enters the bar, as Sirius Black exits.


End file.
